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Buddhism - Eliminating the ego.

Cherry Blossom

I started a mindfulness class maybe 6 months ago and as an extension of that bought buddhism for dummies just as I became interested. There is a lot to it but one thing the book talks about and some websites is eliminating the ego. A health practitioner recently told me that if you had no ego at all you would be schizophrenic. It got me wondering about advanced buddhism practitioners that claim to remember past lives and I'm wondering if they are delusional due to having succeeded in eliminating the ego. This is a genuine query but I didn't want to ask in world religions in case it may cause offence.

What does AH think?

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Stealthfins

If I was telling people I got rid of the ego wouldn't that be egotistical.

Also it's not humble to say you're humble.

I tried all the woo rubbish and meditation etc and it's almost addictive behavior.

If have a content day and am able to put my head on my pillow and have a good night s sleep that's enough for me.

As for Deepak Chopra and his ilk well that's another story,he and others are making millions out of people's vulnerability.

The Backwards Man

I had a Hare Krishna haircut at school, then some smartarse told me it was Hindu not Buddhist and they cut it off!

A week later they were ran over by a bus.

Now that's dharma

seamus

It's all just the same old spiritual nonsense in a different wrapper. That there is "something" "bigger" than "you" and your life should be devoted to "obtaining" it. Whether that's dissolution of the ego in Buddhism or getting a place in heaven with Jesus, Mary & Joseph.

I'm not going to say people shouldn't do it - if it works for you, knock yourself out. But it's still a load of nonsense.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

[Deleted User]

Cherry Blossom wrote: »

It got me wondering about advanced buddhism practitioners that claim to remember past lives and I'm wondering if they are delusional due to having succeeded in eliminating the ego.

I fear what often happens in this world is that we find mundane things useful and beneficial - but then we wrap it in many levels of complete nonsense in order to make it more palatable or marketable.

One area of this is diet where time and time again people wrap some mundane but useful practices - drinking more water, eating less hyper processed foods, moving towards fresh produce - and wrap it up in complete bull - like cayenne pepper diets and the like.

Religions and similar things are often no different than this and you get all kinds of spiritual woo wrapped up around a core of utility.

I am quite deep into the subject of meditation myself - but none of the many experiences I have had in it appear to validate any of the metaphysical woo people hang off it. Certainly not "past lives". And I have had many of the experiences that people claim during meditation as validating some of that woo. The feeling of being "one" with everything - or this seemingly infinite depth of "relevance" things can take on - or the feeling of a presence or mind "outside" ones own somewhere off behind you that exudes benevolence and love and empathy.

Nor do I use meditation to "eliminate" anything - such as the ego. Vipassana Mindfullness Mediation for example does not require you seek to "eliminate" anything like that. We had a user on here some months ago who was intent on telling everyone that meditation was the art of sitting without doing any thinking at all. A complete cessation of thought.

Nah - such meditation does not eliminate thought or the ego - but just lets you separate yourself (the thinking) from those thoughts. To observe them as they arise and watch them as they pass - without allowing yourself to become a slave respondent to every neurotic thought and desire that comes unbidden to the fore.

As one Psychology Today article put it, Mindfulness is "The Power of Thinking About Your Thinking”. Dan Harris (not to be mistaken with Sam Harris - who also espouses the benefits of meditation at length) describes "The skill of knowing what’s happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it.”

In fact both Sam and Dan had a talk about it together I think - though I believe they are not relatives - in this video here - and Sam interviewed Dan in text if that interests you here.

Hope some of that helps.

Turtyturd

Who was the poster that ran mindfulness classes for neckbeards and ninja squads down in Galway?

Aongus something.

[Deleted User]

Turtyturd wrote: »

Who was the poster that ran mindfulness classes for neckbeards and ninja squads down in Galway? Aongus something.

Yeah - Aongus Von Bismarck - I think he lives in Germany now? Most of his posts appear to be some kind of Caricature of something. Not sure what - but certainly something. But they seem too bloviated to be in any way real or useful to anything but mere entertainment. It is like he created a character merging a complete hippy - with the main character of American Psycho - and the self congratulation of Donald Trump - and poured the result into a Boards.ie username.

I do run something similar myself in Maynooth for local students and miscellaneous others (a cop - priest - people with addiction and anger issues and so on) - but I always balk at calling it a "class" - as if I have something to teach. It is more like a guided thing to help them focus on learning stuff themselves or exploring it themselves.

Wibbs

"Mindfulness"; more healing crystals and horoscope nonsense currently fashionable for D4 yummy mummies in yoga pants and the rest of the "chronically well" looking for "alternatives" because actual medical science will tell them they're fine, with a side order of those still feeling empty because rosary beads have lost their gloss, so go off looking for the eastern exotic.

There's some basis to it but it's being really hyped up far beyond its value. What's worrying is mainstream psychology types are adding to the hype. Then again it would be my opinion that much of the "science" of psychology is at best wrong headed, at worst utter self serving quackery. Plus who the hell isn't aware of how they're feeling emotionally at any one time?

Meh, whatever gets you through the night.

jimgoose

According to Robert Pirzig, when the practitioner achieves complete enlightenment, to wit "one-ness" with the Void a.k.a. Tao, he/she is at that point a catatonic schizophrenic. Put another way, to be outside the mythos is to become insane.

Lest we be rendered completely insensate by this revelation, let us now relax by reciting the ancient Gayatri Mantra in the original Sanskrit:

Om,
Bhur bhuvah svaha
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

[Deleted User]

Wibbs wrote: »

"Mindfulness"; more healing crystals and horoscope nonsense

Well one clear difference between mindfulness and "healing crystals" and "horoscopes" is that the former does not require you believe anything on insufficient evidence in order to use it - explore it - or benefit from it. There is no claim at the core of it that is - like with horoscopes - simply abject nonsense.

If there is something at the core of it that is simply a nonsense claim in and of itself - then that would be useful to highlight - but I can not see anything at this time.

So certainly a conversation about the utility and benefits of it is worth having - as is an exploration of it using our sciences to unearth what benefits might be there - and all the benefits I have seen (although many) are purely anecdotal and I would expect you are one person who has as little respect for anecdote as I in such contexts.

But it would be unhelpful and unfair to liken it to those others things while doing it. The comparison simply does not hold. Comparing things with a core of evidence free claims - with something that has no evidence free claims at the core of it - is going to be a tenuous link at best.

seamus

I tend to agree that "mindfulness" in and of itself is probably about the most honest of the new-age woo stuff, in that it doesn't really make any specific claims to draw on mystical energies or to be a path to ultimate enlightenment or anything.

It's one of those things like going for a run or lying back on a sun lounger with cucumbers on your eyes that some people find is a good way to get some stress relief in their life. About the only claims that "mindfulness" tends to make is that you'll be more relaxed and less stressed.

Which isn't exactly a hangable offence, especially if it does work for some people.

Of course, there is also an industry for it, with people claiming to be "gurus" and using this to hand out certificates and run masterclasses so as to extract money from people who want "mindfulness" to be about more than just closing your eyes and zoning out for half an hour. But of itself I think it's pretty inoffensive and pretty far from magic crystals or astrology.

Wibbs

seamus wrote: »

But of itself I think it's pretty inoffensive and pretty far from magic crystals or astrology.

I suppose I meant that in the sense that your magic crystals/astrology/reflexology and general ballsology types are also plugging into and promoting this mindfulness stuff too. Added to the high heap of "self help" stuff Oprah Would Promote kinda thing. If I hear someone going on about it, I can be pretty sure I can then think "hmmm, OK I can put you in this box now". It's the new transcendental meditation. Though as I said if it makes someone happy then knock yourself out.

[Deleted User]

Yea it is absolutely useful to separate the thing itself - with the industry that builds up around it. You will get no argument from me about how awful the latter is - or the people who buy into it. And a lot of them probably do not care if it works or to seek or find any benefits. It is probably just some kind of badge of honour for them. "Oh look at me and my eastern meditation - arent I so deep" - types.

But at the core of it - like at the core of nonsense fad diets like that Cayenne pepper woo - are genuinely useful moves one can make. More study needed of course - to validate what is currently only mere anecdote - and divest it of the woo that builds up around it.

Certainly however training oneself to notice ones thoughts and desires rather than merely be a slave to them - anecdotally at least - seems to have great benefit. I mentioned I have a priest a cop a guy with anger issues and a couple of recovering alcoholics that come to me "sessions". Talking to them individually about how it has helped and why - they try to put into words their experience of the benefits. They find it hard of course but what I noticed is that they were all saying the same thing in very different ways.

Essentially they were telling me that this practice of _noticing_ the thoughts - that they would previously have become neurotically obsessed by - gave them a power over them. The priests self doubt - the cops PTSD symptoms - or the compulsions towards anger or drinking in the others - they were able to almost watch arise and then fall away.

Perhaps another way to put it is that these things would arise in them and _then_ they would start thinking. Usually obsessing over what to do with those feelings now. Whereas now the starting point moves to _before_ that element arose in their mind - rather than starting after it. And it shifted a lot of things for them.

As Sam Harris put it in the video I linked above - one of the first things to strike you when you explore this is that we are lost in thought 99% of the time - rehearsing conversations with ourselves, often repeatedly - and much of what we are thinking is genuinely making us unhappy. And there is genuine benefit in learning to notice this and steer it.

And as I said - unlike new age nonsense like crystals - or older nonsense like star signs - there is nothing at the core of any of that that requires taking anything on faith that is clearly abject nonsense. You can dig down into crystal claims - horoscope claims - homeopathy claims - and so forth and find at their foundation a core of general woo and fantasy. One can not say that about mindfulness meditation practices - so whatever scepticism we can (must) level at it has to take a different tact.

Wibbs

I dunno, I must be wired funny, as I find it very hard to comprehend how someone can't be aware of their thoughts and emotions as they happen. Then again I'm all "stream of consciousness" out of the box, no real depths as such, all is on the surface as it were, with precious little editing, so maybe that's why.

[Deleted User]

Wibbs wrote: »

I dunno, I must be wired funny, as I find it very hard to comprehend how someone can't be aware of their thoughts and emotions as they happen. Then again I'm all "stream of consciousness" out of the box, no real depths as such, all is on the surface as it were, with precious little editing, so maybe that's why.

On the surface? I'm sure you do have depths. We all do. Dig down deep enough in to your unconscious and who knows what you might find. Deep meditation can be met with fear. I've seen people break down after being let through guided practice. It can bring stuff up that you'd prefer to not look at. Being face to face with yourself is scary for many. Vipassana for example isn't for the faint hearted. Nothing which involves working on and getting to know who you truly are ever is.

Wibbs

Deleted User wrote: »

On the surface? I'm sure you do have depths. We all do.

Hidden ones, not so much TBH P. Oh and I've done meditation, guided and alone. Hell I've necked ayahuasca, had the whole ego death thing and memories floating up and had a chat with god, nice guy BTW and nothing really came up. Nothing too surprising anyway. Like I say, wired funny.

This doesn't mean I don't get sad, or angry or anxious from time to time as well as all the nice stuff

, but I 100% know why such emotions are occurring. Does knowing that help? Sometimes, but doesn't really switch them off any faster that I've noticed. You just have to ride it through really. The idea of having an emotion, happy or no and not realising why I was having it would terrify me TBH.

Wibbs

Polar Jacobian wrote: »

Good video on moving past the ego and how the ego is harmful for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5NfcQCFyyg

Do not get me started on that chancer.

It's so important to separate yourself from your thoughts, you are not your thoughts.

Eh yeah, yeah you are. Emotions are "thoughts' as well. "You" are the swirling collection of thoughts conscious or not rising up to the surface(and "surface" itself is a fudge).The "you" looking at your "thoughts" is still thinking Ted. I really don't buy this id/ego/superego labelling guff at all and IMHO the popularity of these all too pat makey uppy definitions has stagnated further progress. That it became mainstream by various quacks selling their various brands of snake oil especially in the online world has done no favours at all. At best it works by placebo(which is fine), at worst it makes obsessive bores of all too many acolytes.

Vincent Vega

Wibbs wrote: »

I dunno, I must be wired funny, as I find it very hard to comprehend how someone can't be aware of their thoughts and emotions as they happen. Then again I'm all "stream of consciousness" out of the box, no real depths as such, all is on the surface as it were, with precious little editing, so maybe that's why.

It's not really all that difficult to understand that some people live on autopilot and rarely fully get much out of the experience of right now.

Many people are pretty much always living a few steps ahead, with the most of their attention fixed on plans, hopes and end goals and are seldom in full awareness of what is literally happening at any given moment. Some people find it hard to switch off even when doing things they enjoy, and are forever caught up thinking about whats next or what happened before.

Like what happens when you're commuting, by car or by public transport. You could get from point A to B and not notice the majority of things going on in your surroundings. Maybe in your head you're already imagining yourself eating dinner, what you're doing at the weekend or off somewhere else in your thoughts looking at the phone. You're hardly even there.

All of this living for (and mentally in) the imagined future could leave you feeling a bit empty if plans seldom seem to live up to your expectations. It's also pretty obvious that experiencing life away in your thoughts, constantly tangled up in your mind a few steps ahead of yourself could create a major amount of anxiety about the future to come.

Mindfulness and other forms of meditation are simply an attempt to direct conscious attention to right this moment, with the aim being to allow the overactive mind to settle down a bit, declutter, and take the most from the present. When it works out, I've found a follow on effect is that I feel generally calmer in otherwise stressful situations, and my mind feels more organised and freer to give full focus on the things that actually matter.

Wibbs

Vincent Vega wrote: »

It's not really all that difficult to understand that some people live on autopilot and rarely fully get much out of the experience of right now.

It genuinely is for me VV. And I know that's a rookie error to assume others think like I might. I tend not to be very future focused, almost to a fault actually. The past comes up sometimes, but mostly not in a negative way. I'd have regrets surface from time to time, but unless I invent a time machine, there's eff all I can do about that and even then, I'd likely just build different maybe much worse regrets. What you see is what you get really. I don't have much at all behind the curtain. I suppose I just go with the flow in my stream of consciousness.

[Deleted User]

There's a lot of bullsh!t surrounding meditation. If we don't define ourselves by our thoughts and opinions then we're not defining ourselves at all, and meaningless semantics that try to ascribe spiritual or sublime significance to a slightly altered neurological state are lost on me.

My grandfather was born and raised Hindu and has practised meditation all his life and has both ascribed and discarded religious meaning to his experiences. If you ask him what meditation is, his wisdom on the subject is summed up as 'It is what it is, everyone is different'.

He doesn't see himself as separating from his ego or his thoughts or experiences, he simply transends the limits of those things for a few minutes in the mornings and evening. He's 91 and has the kind of life experience that would make a bestseller, I'll take his word over anyone involved in the 'industry', particularly the self-appointed guru types.

Wibbs

Candie wrote: »

he simply transends the limits of those things for a few minutes in the mornings and evening.

+1. When I do it, if and when I do it, the best way I could describe it for me is taking the foot off the throttle and letting the engine idle for a time. Like a waking nap of sorts.

[Deleted User]

Wibbs wrote: »

+1. When I do it, if and when I do it, the best way I could describe it for me is taking the foot off the throttle and letting the engine idle for a time. Like a waking nap of sorts.

I knew I'd acquired the 'knack' properly when I felt like I'd slept for two hours after 20 minutes meditation. It cleans out your head for a while, gives you a bit of space.

It doesn't bring you face to face with god.

Cherry Blossom

Gosh this has turned into a very deep conversation. Personally I have found many benefits of mindfulness. I do the 1 hour class every week and do about 20 minutes a day on my own. I find I now focus on whatever task is at hand much better. I'm fully aware of what's going on around me when I'm driving I'm not thinking of something else in the background. I eat slower and my food tastes better. I take time out everyday to relax and read a novel and little quirks people have and noises etc. that used to annoy and irritate me no longer do.

When it was first suggested to me I asked if it was a load of sitting around meditating and nonscence and I was told to go and find out for myself with an open mind. I went to the first few sessions with the mindset that it was nonscence and after a few sessions I started to just go with the flow and was surprised I was enjoying it. I'm glad I stuck with it long enough to start seeing the benefits.

[Deleted User]

I read this book over the summer. It very much relates to what you are talking about:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/0340733500

Earthhorse

It is sort of frustrating take part in discussions like this on boards because most of the disagreements boil down to differing definitions over words like ego and misunderstanding and misrepresentations of what mindfulness is and isn't.

take everything wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Let me put it another way for you. With the uptake in mindfulness has there been an increase in shizophrenia? Of course not. The health practitioner knew well what the OP meant they were just trying to be "clever clever".

seamus wrote: »

It's all just the same old spiritual nonsense in a different wrapper. That there is "something" "bigger" than "you" and your life should be devoted to "obtaining" it. Whether that's dissolution of the ego in Buddhism or getting a place in heaven with Jesus, Mary & Joseph.

I'm not going to say people shouldn't do it - if it works for you, knock
yourself out. But it's still a load of nonsense.

Something that works for you is hardly "a load of nonsense". If jogging or lifting weights or playing your guitar helps you out is it "a load of nonsense". Mindfulness would be better described the opposite of how you have in that some practitioners would argue there is nothing bigger than you.

Permabear wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Many of them had fragile egos too. Spike Milligan always maintained that he was creative in spite of his bipolar disorder not because of it. Yet you can be sure that biographer after biographer will line up to tell us the opposite because it's a very easy story to pitch. People are always at pains to tell us there is a connection between mental illness, hardship, ego, drugs and creativity but what about all the people who experience those things and aren't creative?

The truth is you can "eliminate" the ego and still be creative and driven. These different characteristics are more independent than people make out.

Moreover, most of us are not leaders in our given fields. Perhaps ego helped them (I have no doubt it may have helped some) but is it helping us? If people are worried that the world will come to a standstill were everyone to successfully practising mindfulness I think that goes back to the root of people completely misunderstanding what it is. If anything the opposite will happen.

Wibbs wrote: »

Plus who the hell isn't aware of how they're feeling emotionally at any one time?

I would say almost everyone is but enough people aren't aware of why they're feeling the way they are. This is usually due to a lack of clarity in their thinking or to denial (they fundamentally know why they feel that way but it's painful to admit). Mindfulness can help with that.

seamus wrote: »

About the only claims that "mindfulness" tends to make is that you'll be more relaxed and less stressed.

Well precisely. It is like people get what mindfulness is and then criticise it for being something else.

Of course, there is also an industry for it, with people claiming to be "gurus" and using this to hand out certificates and run masterclasses so as to extract money from people who want "mindfulness" to be about more than just closing your eyes and zoning out for half an hour. But of itself I think it's pretty inoffensive and pretty far from magic crystals or astrology.

In a capitalist world there's an industry for everything. If I want to attend a drumming workship with the drummer from the RHCP I'll probably pay a premium. He may not be the best teacher or the best drummer in the world but if I enjoy the experience what of it? You would swear mindfulness was bankrupting the nation or something.

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh yeah, yeah you are. Emotions are "thoughts' as well. "You" are the swirling collection of thoughts conscious or not rising up to the surface(and "surface" itself is a fudge).The "you" looking at your "thoughts" is still thinking Ted. I really don't buy this id/ego/superego labelling guff at all and IMHO the popularity of these all too pat makey uppy definitions has stagnated further progress. That it became mainstream by various quacks selling their various brands of snake oil especially in the online world has done no favours at all. At best it works by placebo(which is fine), at worst it makes obsessive bores of all too many acolytes.

No, you are not your thoughts and no emotions aren't thoughts either. If you are your thoughts then that is essentially a meaningless statement because in the space of any given day you will likely have completely contradictory thoughts. You can't be two opposite things; that's impossible. Or if you are one thing one moment and another the next then labelling that "you" has no helpful meaning.

Emotions can be influenced by thoughts but aren't the same thing. Pretty sure that's the basis for CBT.

I agree with you about id, ego, superego labelling. Ironically again this is quite close to what mindfulness talks about. When they use words like ego or identity that often say not to regards these as things in themselves (in other words not to get pedantic about them) but rather that they are using these words as pointers to phenomena that are difficult to describe.

Candie wrote: »

There's a lot of bullsh!t surrounding meditation. If we don't define ourselves by our thoughts and opinions then we're not defining ourselves at all, and meaningless semantics that try to ascribe spiritual or sublime significance to a slightly altered neurological state are lost on me.

Mindfulness doesn't do that though in my experience. Quite the opposite.

Candie wrote: »

I knew I'd acquired the 'knack' properly when I felt like I'd slept for two hours after 20 minutes meditation. It cleans out your head for a while, gives you a bit of space.

It doesn't bring you face to face with god.

Again, this is 90% of what mindfulness practitioners talk about. It seems to me people in this thread are criticising some other forms of meditation or else some fringe practitioners and claims of mindfulness. Or else they are complaining about semantics and then engaging in semantic debates themselves.

[Deleted User]

Earthhorse wrote: »

]
Mindfulness doesn't do that though in my experience. Quite the opposite.

Fair enough, though I'm only talking about traditional meditation.

I wasn't talking about mindfulness since I don't know anything about it.

Earthhorse

Candie wrote: »

Fair enough, though I'm only talking about traditional meditation.

I wasn't talking about mindfulness since I don't know anything about it.

Also fair enough. A lot of traditional meditation is about bringing the mind to a place of stillness, I would have thought, and mindfulness is based on that.

It's a bit like saying if you exercise you'll lose weight, but obviously that doesn't keep you at the same weight forever. So I feel peoplewho are saying you meditate to "eliminate the ego" are saying the same thing; you get rid of a lot of useless, critical, "egotistical" thinking by meditating but no one, or very few people, ever actually "eliminate their ego" on a full time basis.

Wibbs

Earthhorse wrote: »

No, you are not your thoughts and no emotions aren't thoughts either.

They may have different labels but emotions are another part of the brain's cognitive processes, just like conscious thoughts are. Are they different in nature? Yes, emotions tend to be reactive and lower down the pecking order of direct control, but still "thoughts".

If you are your thoughts then that is essentially a meaningless statement because in the space of any given day you will likely have completely contradictory thoughts. You can't be two opposite things; that's impossible. Or if you are one thing one moment and another the next then labelling that "you" has no helpful meaning

Of course one can hold completely contradictory thoughts over time and often enough over a very short time. That is not impossible.

Emotions can be influenced by thoughts but aren't the same thing. Pretty sure that's the basis for CBT.

One thought can completely overturn an existing set of thoughts. Changing one's mind and all that. So of course one cognitive process "thoughts" can influence another cognitive process "emotions", for good or ill.

Its all alt right

Dali should bring in a rule where western convert Buddhists wouldn't be allowed teach, or even speak of, Buddhism until they are reincarnated in the next life.

robindch

Cherry Blossom wrote: »

This is a genuine query but I didn't want to ask in world religions in case it may cause offence.

You could try asking in Atheism and Agnosticism.

We don't really do "offence" in the way that our esteemed, but faintly combustible, religious colleagues do.